Artificial intelligence just did something that seemed impossible: reading a book that was destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago.
We are not talking about a digitized file or a well-preserved document sitting in some climate-controlled museum.
We are talking about a carbonized scroll, broken in half, with fragments that crumble at the slightest touch, buried under the ashes of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. and rediscovered centuries later in pretty rough condition.
And yet, researchers managed to reveal 20 hidden columns of text, covering more than one meter of burnt papyrus, all without physically opening the document a single time.
The result is impressive on its own, but what makes this story even more special is the content that came to light after so much silence.
These are reflections on Stoic philosophy, ethics, art, and human behavior, possibly written by one of the great thinkers of ancient Greece.
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Books the world believed were lost forever are, quite literally, beginning to speak again. 📜✨
What is the Herculaneum Scroll and why it matters so much
Herculaneum was a Roman city, neighbor to Pompeii, that was completely swallowed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Unlike Pompeii, which was buried under ash and pumice, Herculaneum was hit by a wave of superheated volcanic material that carbonized virtually everything in its path, including wood, food, and of course, papyrus scrolls. This carbonization process was brutal on the physical objects, but at the same time it ended up preserving the contents of hundreds of text rolls that otherwise would have simply rotted away over the centuries. It was a delicate and unsettling balance between destruction and preservation.
These scrolls were found inside a luxurious villa in Herculaneum, forming what became known as the library of the Herculaneum Scrolls, with hundreds of rolls recovered. The problem is that they were so fragile and brittle that any attempt to open them resulted in immediate destruction. For a long time, researchers were stuck with the feeling of holding a priceless treasure in their hands without being able to read it.
The scroll in the spotlight right now has been named PHerc 1667. Its age makes it one of the oldest in the entire collection, with dating pointing to the second or late third century B.C. But the history of this roll has been marked by serious damage over time. At some point it was broken in half, and early manual attempts to unroll it caused the outer layers to peel off or disintegrate. What remains today is only half of the original size, roughly 8 centimeters tall and 2 centimeters wide. Even so, it was enough to reveal incredibly valuable content.
How AI managed to read something that should barely exist
The process that made all of this possible starts with ultra-high-resolution X-ray images. With these, researchers can create a detailed representation of the inside of the scroll without needing to physically unroll it. The problem is that, even with these images in hand, the ancient ink and the carbonized papyrus look extremely similar, making it nearly impossible to distinguish the written letters from the background of the document.
That is where the Vesuvius Challenge entered the picture. Launched in 2023 as a global competition, the challenge invited teams from around the world to develop artificial intelligence models capable of identifying patterns in the X-ray images and, from there, revealing hidden letters and words. The project distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes to the teams that managed to push this mission forward using AI and other software to virtually unroll the scrolls and read the text from the high-resolution imagery.
The foundation of all this work came from Professor Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky. He demonstrated how machine learning algorithms could be trained to read ink on the hidden layers of the scrolls, detecting subtle differences in papyrus fibers present in the X-ray images. The challenge, backed by Silicon Valley donors, attracted teams that refined these techniques for virtually unrolling and reading the scrolls.
The models trained within the Vesuvius Challenge framework learned to identify tiny differences on the surface of the carbonized papyrus, detecting traces left by ink even when those traces looked virtually identical to the surrounding material. The result was the reading of increasingly longer passages, culminating in the revelation of the 20 columns that are now making headlines worldwide. This process was neither fast nor linear, but it worked in a way that few people could confidently predict before actually trying.
The revealed content and its connection to Stoic philosophy
A large portion of the Herculaneum library was dominated by Philodemus of Gadara, an Epicurean philosopher and poet from the first century B.C. However, the case of PHerc 1667 is different. Both the title and the author remain unknown, but the older age of the scroll and the content point to another name. The analysis carried out by papyrologist Dr. Federica Nicolardi of the University of Naples Federico II, along with her colleagues, suggests that the text is a Stoic treatise, possibly written by the Greek philosopher Chrysippus.
Chrysippus was the third head of the Stoic school and already has other works present in the collection. The text even references his nephew and student, Aristocreon, which strengthens this hypothesis. As Nicolardi herself noted, in the beginning the team thought it might be an Epicurean discussing Stoic doctrine, but they later realized that if this text had been found outside of Herculaneum, it would be classified directly as a Stoic work.
The revealed content dives into core concepts of Stoic philosophy. One of them is hormē, or impulse, with a warning that failing to regulate behavior through reason can lead to harmful passions and a departure from one’s own goals. Another concept present is phronēsis, or practical wisdom, considered the greatest virtue a person can possess within Stoic thought.
In one of the passages, the author writes that we will investigate something, but we will not be able to understand it if we somehow distance ourselves from ourselves and from our own nature. This line suggests that reason and the natural human inclination to do good were fundamental to the advancement of knowledge. It is a thought that resonates in a surprisingly powerful way even today, more than two thousand years later.
Other findings and the future of the scrolls
PHerc 1667 was not the only scroll to reveal surprises. Another virtually unrolled scroll brought to light the words Philodemus, On the Gods, Book 8, revealing for the first time that the work On the Gods was composed of multiple books. Before this, only the first had been identified. As Nicolardi herself put it, these closed scrolls from Herculaneum look like dead books, but they are not. They are beginning to speak again. 🧠
For Professor Brent Seales, the focus of the challenge has now shifted. Before, the problem was finding the techniques needed to read the burned scrolls. Today, with proof that it is possible, the work becomes academic in nature, focused on understanding what these texts truly mean. He described the moment with an emotional comparison, saying that for him it was the World Cup and that he had just won it, calling it his greatest victory.
Nicolardi herself pointed out that, even without having the entire scroll, the surviving object was unrolled in its entirety, and that is a hugely important result because it shows that the capability to fully unroll these objects already exists. It is a milestone that opens doors for all the other still-intact scrolls in the collection.
The most fascinating thing about all of this is realizing that artificial intelligence was not just a tool in this process. It was, in a way, the key that opened a door humanity had lost two millennia ago. And that raises a question that lingers in the air, not rhetorically, but out of genuine curiosity: how many other doors are still closed, waiting for the right technology to open them? 🔓📚
